Sweet Pyrrhasus, with blooming flowrets crown'd,
And Antron's wat'ry dens, and cavern'd ground.
These own'd as chief Protesilas the brave,
Who now lay silent in the gloomy grave:
The first who boldly touch'd the Trojan shore,
And dyed a Phrygian lance with Grecian gore,
There lies, far distant from his native plain;
Unfinish'd his proud palaces remain,

And his sad consort beats her breast in vain.
His troops in forty ships Podarces led,
Iphiclus' son, and brother to the dead;
Nor he unworthy to command the host;
Yet still they mourned their ancient leader lost.
The men who Glaphyra's fair soil partake,
Where hills encircle Babe's lowly lake,
Where Phare hears the neighbouring waters fall,
Or proud Iölcus lifts her airy wall,

In ten black ships embark'd for Ilion's shore,
With bold Eumēlus, whom Alcestè bore:
All Pelias' race Alcestè far outshined,
The grace and glory of the beauteous kind.

The troops Methonè or Thaumachia yields,
Olizon's rocks, or Melibœa's fields,
With Philoctetes sail'd, whose matchless art
From the tough bow directs the feather'd dart.
Seven were his ships; each vessel fifty row,
Skill'd in his science of the dart and bow:
But he lay raging on the Lemnian ground;
A poisonous hydra gave the burning wound;
There groan'd the chief in agonizing pain,
Whom Greece at length shall wish, nor wish in vain.
His forces Medon led from Lemnos' shore,
Oileus son whom beauteous Rhena bore.

Th' Echalian race, in those high towers contain❜d,
Where once Eurytus in proud triumph reign'd,
Or where her humbler turrets Tricca rears,
Or where Ithomè, rough with rocks, appears,
In thirty sail the sparkling waves divide,
Which Podalirius and Machaon guide.

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To these his skill their parent-god* imparts,
Divine professors of the healing arts.

The bold Ormenian and Asterian bands,
In forty barks, Eurypylus commands,
Where Titan hides his hoary head in snow,
And where Hyperia's silver fountains flow.
Thy troops, Argissa, Polypœtes leads,
And Eleon, shelter'd by Olympus' shades,
Gyrtone's warriors: and where Orthè lies,
And Oleösson's chalky cliffs arise,
Sprung from Pirithoüs, of immortal race,
The fruit of fair Hippodamè's embrace,

(That day when, hurl'd from Pelion's cloudy head,
To distant dens the shaggy Centaurs fled,)
With Polypates join'd in equal sway
Leonteus leads, and forty ships obey.

In twenty sail the bold Perrhæbians came
From Cyphus; Guneus was their leader's name.
With these the Enians join'd, and those who freeze
Where cold Dodona lifts her holy trees;
Or where the pleasing Titaresius glides,
And into Peneus rolls his easy tides;
Yet o'er the silver surface pure they flow,

The sacred stream unmix'd with streams below,
Sacred and awful! From the dark abodes
Styx pours them forth, the dreadful oath of gods!
Last, under Prothous, the Magnesians stood,
Prothous the swift, of old Tenthedron's blood,
Who dwells where Pelion, crown'd with piny boughs,
Obscures the glade, and nods his shaggy brows;
Or where through flowery Tempé Peneus stray'd,
(The region stretch'd beneath his mighty shade.)
In forty sable barks they stemm'd the main ;
Such were the chiefs, and such the Grecian train.
Say next, O Muse! of all Achaia breeds,
Who bravest fought, or rein'd the noblest steeds?

* Esculapius.

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Eumělus' mares were foremost in the chase
As eagles fleet, and of Pheretian race.
Bred where Pieria's fruitful fountains flow,
And train'd by him who bears the silver bow.
Fierce in the fight, their nostrils breath'd a flame,
Their height, their colour, and their age the same;
O'er fields of death they whirl the rapid car,
And break the ranks, and thunder through the war.
Ajax in arms the first renown acquired,

While stern Achilles in his wrath retired:
(His was the strength that mortal might exceeds,
And his th' unrival'd race of heavenly steeds.)
But Thetis' son now shines in arms no more:
His troops, neglected on the sandy shore,
In empty air their sportive javelins throw,
Or whirl the disk, or bend an idle bow:
Unstain'd with blood, his cover'd chariots stand;
Th' immortal coursers graze along the strand;
But the brave chiefs th' inglorious life deplored,
And, wandering o'er the camp, required their lord.
Now, like a deluge, covering all around,

The shining armies swept along the ground;
Swift as a flood of fire, when storms arise,
Floats the wide field, and blazes to the skies.
Earth groan'd beneath them; as when angry Jove
Hurls down the forky lightning from above,
On Arimè when he the thunder throws,
And fires Typhæus with redoubled blows,
Where Typhon, press'd beneath the burning load,
Still feels the fury of th' avenging god.

But various Iris, Jove's commands to bear,
Speeds on the wings of winds through liquid air:
In Priam's porch the Trojan chiefs she found,
The old consulting, and the youths around.
Polites' shape, the monarch's son, she chose,
Who from Æsetes' tomb observed the foes,

High on the mound; from whence in prospect lay
The fields, the tents, the navy, and the bay.

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In this dissembled form, she hastes to bring
Th' unwelcome message to the Phrygian king.
"Cease to consult; the time for action calls;
War, horrid war, approaches to your walls!
Assembled armies oft have I beheld,

But ne'er till now such numbers charged a field.
Thick as autumnal leaves or driving sand,
The moving squadrons blacken all the strand.
Thou, godlike Hector! all thy force employ,
Assemble all th' united bands of Troy;
In just array let every leader call

The foreign troops; this day demands them all.”
The voice divine the mighty chief alarms:
The council breaks, the warriors rush to arms.
The gates, unfolding, pour forth all their train,

Nations on nations fill the dusky plain.

Men, steeds, and chariots, shake the trembling ground! The tumult thickens, and the skies resound.

Amidst the plain, in sight of Ilion, stands

A rising mount, the work of human hands.
(This for Myrinne's tomb th' immortals know,
Though call'd Bateïa in the world below.)
Beneath their chiefs, in martial order, here
The auxiliar troops and Trojan hosts appear.
The godlike Hector, high above the rest,

Shakes his huge spear, and nods his plumy crest⚫
In throngs around his native bands repair,
And groves of lances glitter in the air.

Divine Æneas brings the Dardan race,
Anchises' son by Venus' stol'n embrace,
Born in the shades of Ida's secret grove
(A mortal mixing with the queen of love).
Archilochus and Acamas divide
The warrior's toils, and combat by his side.
Who fair Zeleia's wealthy valleys till,
Fast by the foot of Ida's sacred hill,
Or drink, Æsopus, of thy sable flood,
Were led by Pandarus, of royal blood;

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To whom his art Apollo deign'd to show,
Graced with the presents of his shafts and bow.
From rich Apæsus' and Adrestia's towers, -
High Teree's summits, and Pityea's bowers;
From these the congregated troops obey
Young Amphius' and Adrastus' equal sway:
Old Merop's sons; whom, skill'd in fates to come,
The sire forewarn'd, and prophesied their doom:
Fate urged them on, the sire forewarn'd in vain,
They rush'd to war, and perish'd on the plain.

From Practius' stream, Percotè's pasture lands,
And Sestos' and Abydos' neighbouring strands,
From great Arisba's walls and Sellè's coast,
Asius Hyrtacides conducts his host:
High on his car he shakes the flowing reins,
His fiery coursers thunder o'er the plains.

The fierce Pelasgi next, in war renown'd,
March from Larissa's ever-fertile ground:
In equal arms their brother-leaders shine,
Hippothous bold, and Pyleus the divine.

Next Acamas and Pyrous lead their hosts,
In dread array, from Thracia's wintry coasts;
Round the bleak realms where Hellespontus roars,
And Boreas beats the hoarse-resounding shores.
With great Euphemus the Ciconians move,
Sprung from Trazenian Ceus, loved by Jove.

Pyræchmes the Poonian troops attend,

Skill'd in the fight, their crooked bows to bend ;
From Axius' ample bed he leads them on,
Axius, that laves the distant Amydon;

Axius, that swells with all his neighbouring rills,
And wide around the floating region fills.

The Paphlagonians Pylœmenes rules,

Where rich Henetia breeds her savage mules,
Where Erythinus' rising cliffs are seen,
Thy groves of box, Cytorus! ever green;
And where Ægialus and Cromna lie,

And lofty Sesamus invades the sky;

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